Category: Down and Out Books.

It weighs on my mind every second of every minute of every day. Obsession does not describe me though, not to an accurate degree. I am him now. He, unfortunately, me. The difference, the main difference, being our retaliations and how we’ve chosen to implement the pain. “Your ribs are showing.” I close the cell…

Patricia Abbott’s Monkey Justice stands head and shoulders above almost all short story collections out there. This is a mature and assured collection of brilliant stories that show us a great deal about the lives of the wide range of characters. Personal favourites include ‘The Instrument Of Her Desire’, ‘Georgie’ and ‘The Squatter’ but there really isn’t a duff…

Setting aside the ongoing argument about whether art imitates life or life imitates art—because I think we can all agree there’s a simpatico relationship between the two—I’d like to talk for a moment about those times when art must imitate life. For pragmatic purposes, I believe there’re times when, as a writer, you have to…

For his eighty-six years, Mantooth appears stronger than he is. Veins on his forearms like cables. A chest that could still be classed as barrel. None of it mattered. Not once we begin. Four teeth falling from his mouth and we’re halfway to the place I want us to be. “You’re going to tell me…

When Paul debuted Punk Noir my immediate thought was of the night those two passions of mine collided. See, I was a hardcore kid. Punk rock was actually kind of weak in my mind at 15, even though my gateway drugs had been the Ramones and Sex Pistols like everyone else. But after I’d…

New from Down & Out Books … ADRENALINE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR by Les Edgerton Publication Date: November 19, 2018 Buy the trade paperback from the Down & Out Bookstore and receive a FREE digital download of the book! Also available from the following retailers … Print: Amazon — Amazon UK — Barnes & Noble — IndieBound eBook: Kindle — Kindle UK — Nook — iTunes — Kobo — Play Synopsis … Adrenaline Junkie is more than a renowned, multi-award-winning author entertaining…

Ball regarded the mess on the warehouse floor. Felt slightly sick. Wished he was back home watching Blazing Saddles, which he had been until his henchmen called him out. Annoying, that. It had just got to the farting – his favourite bit. He felt his face twitch into a grin, had to smooth it back…

(From my novel, THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING from Down & Out Books) An hour later, Tommy and me are sitting on the St. Charles streetcar, at the stop by the zoo down by Club 4141, watching people get on in the front. The last two on are a young tourist couple in matching yellow…

You can thank my Mum for my latest, rather gruesome story. No, she didn’t serve us someone’s liver with fava beans and a fine chianti. But she did tell me an old World War 2 joke which, while not being about cannibalism itself, stayed with me for years and provided the basis for ‘Rabbit Stew’….

First time I meet Lamar Purdue is in another life. Squat for his age, he’s thicker at fourteen than the height he’d come to be in all his years. Little man had a hound dog face and jerry curl eyes. He was polite too, politer than most, which is why things played out the way…